“If the first goal of emotion regulation is to learn to sense the ebb and flow of your inner world, the second goal would be to increase the range of your window of tolerance.
Having a trauma history tends to result in a reduced capacity for sensation and emotion.
It is important learn how to exist with difficult feelings.
You can do this by slowly developing your ability to stay present with increasingly greater amounts of sensation.
You can broaden your capacity to handle distress by slowly stepping out of your comfort zone.
In somatic psychotherapy, you can learn to increase your window of tolerance through an activity called pendulation .
Pendulation involves alternating your attention between feelings of safety and feelings of distress as they are experienced in your body.” . .
Bullying persists at epidemic levels among children and adolescents (Harris, Lieberman, & Marans, 2007). It has been described as an adverse childhood experience (Stopbullying.gov, 2017).
Bullying is most common in childhood and adolescence (Aalsma & Brown, 2008). Up to three-quarters of young adolescents experience bullying (e.g., name-calling, embarrassment, or ridicule), and up to a third report coercion and even inappropriate touching (Juvonen, Nishina, & Graham, 2001).
Does bullying affect only the victim? How long do the effects last?
Bullying has been found to affect the bullied person as well as the bully. Both are at greater risk of mental and behavioral problems, including a higher risk of depression (Smokowski & Kopasz, 2005).
The poor physical and emotional outcomes of bullying can affect an individual, both in the short and long term (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021).
A plethora of research shows that bullying experienced in childhood can go on to cause anxiety and depression (Stapinski et al., 2014) in young and middle adulthood (Copeland, Wolke, Angold, & Costello, 2013).
Adult suicidal attempts (Stapinski et al., 2014), poor financial management (Wolke, Copeland, Angold, & Costello, 2013), and poor career success as an adult are all negative outcomes (Takizawa, Maughan, & Arseneault, 2014).
What type of profile does a bully or a victim possess?
There is not one single profile of a bully or someone affected by bullying. Bullies and victims can be socially included or marginally excluded (Stopbullying.gov, 2021). Either the bully or victim may have been in the role of a perpetrator and victim of bullying at some point in life (Leiner et al., 2014).
One interesting study found that bullies, victims, and those who have experienced both have a plethora of emotional, psychosocial, and behavioral problems (Leiner et al., 2014). This highlights that interventions are equally important for all groups, not only the victims. . .
Beginning in 1994, the “adverse childhood experiences” (ACE) Study, a partnership between the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Kaiser Permanente assessed the relationship between adult health risk behaviors and childhood abuse and household dysfunction.
The study began with a sample of 9,508 individuals representing a 70.5% response rate.
Respondents were given a score of one for each ACE category that they experienced.
Findings showed that people who experienced four or more adverse childhood events had:
increased risk for smoking, alcoholism and drug abuse
increased risk for depression and suicide attempts
poor self-rated health
50 or more sexual partners
greater likelihood of sexually transmitted disease
challenges with physical inactivity, and severe obesity
A follow-up sample combined with baseline data for a total sample of 17,337. Additional findings show that ACE Score is associated with:
likelihood of attempted suicide across the lifespan
PTSD - A Way Out.com 
